I LOVE the work of the IDW team on the TMNT. You have the best incarnation and doing a FANTASTIC job on making fans happy! Therefore please don't be offended about this post. But the latest Universe #18 was so bad (the main story only) that I've decided to sum up the biggest misses, from my point of view, you've created in the last years. Keep in mind - everything else is GREAT - and maybe exactly through comparing it to your standard work, you make us see how amazing your usual results are!

So here comes my top list of worst TMNT IDW stories and art.

1. Universe #18 main story
2. Recent Leonardo backup with him fighting Kitsune (Don't remember the name - cut out the pages and thrown them away)
3. Both annuals (I am greatfull for Kevin creating the Turtles, but his art I can't enjoy)
4. April and Casey mini
5. Universe #9-10 - Toad Baron story

Yeah, I'd agree with your list except for Toad Baron's Ball. Art was a little fugly, but a fun story that was worth its page count.

IDW really needs to rein in Eastman's writing, the issues he does (City Fall prelude, both Annuals, and Inside Out) are all really out of place. Drastically different in tone.

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The only issue/miniseries I felt was seriously, significantly flawed was April & Casey. That was like, back-to-the-drawing board bad. I feel like it was solicited before it was finished so they had no choice but to put it out, regardless of how they felt about the quality. I liked the idea of doing a story about April and Casey and there relationship difficulties at the time, but the miniseries was just so poorly written, it was unforgivable, irredeemable. The four-part miniseries we got could have been boiled down to a one-shot, or they could have introduced actual plot points and had actual events happen in the four issues they produced. In any case, at least it served as a learning experience.

I try not to dwell on negativity, but we all do have to be honest sometimes and confess our dislikes of something we generally love. And I do love the IDW Turtle books. But still...

Yeah, the Casey & April mini was just a whole lot of bad. I get what they were TRYING to do with it, but the execution was less "indie comic" and more "amateur comic". The scripting was full of non sequitur conversations and overblown symbolism (the heart-shaped rock). Tiresome clichés at every turn, too ("Them durn cityslickers can't mosey on into our redneck diner n think they can gets away with it!")

And the art looked like someone colored the thumbnails. "Style" only takes you so far when combating critique, but when there's no sense of scale or weight and characters are so under-emotive that they never seem to be reacting coherently to what's happening around them... It's indefensible.

Basically, it felt like IDW's attempt to go for the kind of crowd Marvel Comics has been courting the past few years. They experimented, that was fine, but I'm glad they moved away from that kind of stuff. The overwhelming majority of IDW's output has been great, which I guess is why something like Casey & April sticks out as sorely as it does.

Well I'm not fond of the Annuals (though the second one is a little easier to read), C&A and Utrom Empire. The latest issue of Universe, like a lot people already said, seems really pointless. Beyond that it's mostly nitpicks, certain arcs feel like they can drag, the issue where Shredders double meets with Krang seems kind of pointless, Bebop and Rocksteady can feel tacked on when an issue not written by Weaver/Bates features them heavily, etc.

Like it's still a really well made series, it my favourite incarnation for a reason, it just has a few clunkers. Out of the TMNT comics I've read, it's by far the most consistently good. While I praise the artistry of Mirage, it would be foolish not to point out some of the questionable aspects. IDW's take on the Nick cartoon is mostly just generic kiddy fair, OK for the target audience but not if you're older. Then there's Adventures and oh boy, do I suspect 65% of good will towards it comes from nostalgia...

It's almost not worth thinking about what has been bad about this series, there hasn't really been bad year so to say. No period in the majority, or even about half, of the issues have been bad yet. If it does happen, then I'll have reason to think about what doesn't work.

These threads always make me cringe a bit when I know peeps involved in making the stories could be lurking on these forums, but hey, good criticism is good criticism, and I think there's already been a bunch of dang IDW is pretty consistently fantabulous but here's a couple weak spots sentiment shown already in this thread that proves just how great they're doing, on average.

That being said... I honestly think some of my least favorite issues were the very first ones. The writing seemed a little more formulaic to begin with, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I am really not a big fan of Duncan's art. Especially his early stuff seemed kind of all over the place in terms of quality. Maybe it was him dealing with Kevin's layouts for those issues? Things picked up a little with the introduction of the reincarnation plot, IDW's first big breakthough of originality, setting them apart from past incarnations. Other than that, I felt the whole first year of issues to be a bit weak, and their first encounter with the Shredder not quite the epic payoff I'd hoped for.

The last 2-3 years have been really firing on all cylinders though, really so few complaints to be had, and the more I go to cons and meet the various artists and writers the more I appreciate the scope of talent that's been brought into the fold. Bobby's done a bang-up job filling these pages with fresh and consistent storytelling and visuals. I'm hooked til #100 and beyond!

I just want to say that I really love seeing Eastman work on the TMNT. Sometimes the art can look crude, so I love having him team up with someone, like he did with Duncan on the first arc, because his layouts can be pretty damn dynamic.

His interpretation of the tmnt just works for me. The goofy lingo, the sinister grins, the grit and the mud.

Anyway, I know this is a thread to discuss things we don't like, but since Kevin has come up twice (which I can understand, to be fair), I felt the discussion was warranted.

I expressed my disappointment in Trial of Krang, now let's do it all over again!

Spoiler:

The first big problem I had that it was boring and that the Malignoid problem was mostly unnecessary except to get the Triceratons involved.

The second big problem was how it used Krang before offing him in a way that was also very disappointing. If his abuse of Leatherhead had been a thing told in-story instead of in a couple very small flashbacks, then maybe it would be better. If the Malignoids had to be involved, I would have preferred he go down fighting. It would be a hell of a lot more ironic if he died helping to stop the invasion of a planet that he had previously invaded. Otherwise, he basically just complained for the majority of his time. (And I'm surprised that Ma'riell wasn't even present. Though she was on persecution, I think she should have been there as a character witness. She'd be more of a fair judge of his character, since she wouldn't be a crazy loyalist like Ch'rell, Kleve, or Montuoro).

Maybe a lot of it for me was setting my expectations for it too high, but man I'm hoping Ch'rell redeems the disappointments.

From the Heart for the Herd was the other one.

Spoiler:

First, for the uncomfortable implications that Zom is Zog's clone.

Second, it seemed to really speed through the rebellion and I didn't care for the exclusive focus on Zog and Zom's complaints. Surely there weren't some Triceratons who maybe didn't want to rebel? The letter writing was a major interruption from the story. It was too easy for Zom to find out about the truth of their origins. Almost too easy.

The whole thing was really rushed through. And if it weren't for the backpage previews saved for the Usagi or Batman crossovers, maybe they could have used those pages to get in just a little bit more. Maybe cover a lot more of those "gray areas" that the entire series means to have for everyone.

And I was actually pretty excited about this storyline, but much like Trial of Krang, I don't think it used its story as well as it could.

Oh, and all the contradictory plot points from Utrom Empire!

Utrom Empire had Krang defending Quanin against Lorqa's criticism, even referring to Quanin as his "father" without balking. Yet From the Heart, which I'm assuming happens at the same time through a lot of those events, Krang refuses to even think of Quanin as his father and we're not really given any specifications on why. I'd assume things going full circle from a mention of Quanin not referring to Krang as his son because he didn't take the time to actually, you know, parent him instead of leaving him to his own devices and dissolve into a pampered little brat, thus picking up behavior that he never should have learned in the first place, if you actually parented the boy, you idiot!

Ahem...

And then the differences in Zog's attitude toward Krang.
I think that if Zog was written as he was in From the Heart, who was willing to kill Krang if ever the opportunity came up, he would have done it at the three significant moments where he had chances.
The fight in the office, holding him at gunpoint in the prison yard, and dropping him out the ship when he escaped. But nope. But he didn't as he was written in Utrom Empire. He left him be with nothing more than a cracked seal in the suit, got what he wanted from Quanin, didn't care what happened after dropping him from the ship. He had at least some respect for Krang and hope that he could turn things around, and thus kept giving him chances. I'd even say they were friends at some point.

I think his attitudes being too different between two appearances are because he just hasn't had enough appearances for a solidified personality and that's causing some narrative problems. It's like there's two totally different people in each storyline.

And finally, the differences in where the original Triceratops DNA came from. It's depicted as taking blood samples from multiple specimens and leaving them be, not removing them from the planet. I CAN see sense in them taking a few freshly laid eggs from their nests over multiple nesting seasons, though, and carefully mutating embryos so they're bipedal and sterile. And I would like to see at least someone arguing against that, thinking that maybe it would be easier to let them breed on their own and have a contingency plan if rebellion happened. To which someone clearly said no to both and that Utrom is a bigger idiot than Quanin. Unless it was Quanin. Then there's no hope for him.

Also, will someone please send an interior decorator to Krang's quarters? It's horribly under furnished, especially for a prince that just became a General.

I forget Casey & April exists on occasion. Read it once to see what the problem was and yeah. Gotta agree with the problems. Aka's introduction was nice (gotta have someone in that family with some stability and sense in their head), but the rest was a garbage fire.

I haven't read the 2014 annual yet, but the City Fall Prelude and the 2012 Annual were great. The stories were nothing special, but always fun

Read the 2014 Annual. The 2012 one is much better

Quote:

Originally Posted by funatic

That being said... I honestly think some of my least favorite issues were the very first ones. The writing seemed a little more formulaic to begin with, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I am really not a big fan of Duncan's art. Especially his early stuff seemed kind of all over the place in terms of quality. Maybe it was him dealing with Kevin's layouts for those issues? Things picked up a little with the introduction of the reincarnation plot, IDW's first big breakthough of originality, setting them apart from past incarnations. Other than that, I felt the whole first year of issues to be a bit weak, and their first encounter with the Shredder not quite the epic payoff I'd hoped for.

The last 2-3 years have been really firing on all cylinders though, really so few complaints to be had, and the more I go to cons and meet the various artists and writers the more I appreciate the scope of talent that's been brought into the fold. Bobby's done a bang-up job filling these pages with fresh and consistent storytelling and visuals. I'm hooked til #100 and beyond!

I agree about the first ~12 issues or so. For me, Duncan's initial art style didn't grip me and the story was still finding its voice. I had been away from comics awhile when I found the IDW series, and if I hadn't been able to read through the first year of back issues in such a short span of time I don't know if I would've stayed with it. As it was, I was able to get invested in their version of the Turtles' mythos and become intrigued by the reincarnation aspect, which I think is the perfect twist on the Turtles' origin; it feels like it should have always been the case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neatoman

Well I'm not fond of the Annuals (though the second one is a little easier to read), C&A and Utrom Empire.

What was it about Utrom Empire that didn't work for you? I rather liked that miniseries, despite it only being three issues

What was it about Utrom Empire that didn't work for you? I rather liked that miniseries, despite it only being three issues

Mostly it's that I don't like Andy Kuhn's artwork. While the writing is good, I must admit that the actual story seems a little pointless, which means it's not enough to supress my distaste for the artwork like in Mutanimals. The present day stuff just boils down to "Baxter sabotages the Technodrome and Krang saves it", while the backstory pretty much only introduces the Triceratons and expands on the backstory in Krang's mini. It's not awful, it's just that I didn't feel like I got enough out of it.

I've ordered the HC IDW Collection 4 (and 5) just yesterday. Should arrive on Wednesday. It includes the 2014 annual, I shall see.

Okay, the 2014 annual isn't that good, that's right. It is very rushed and pointless in storytelling, and the art doesn't help to compensate that. But the main problem is that it is too short. If the whole story had place to be fleshed out, it could work. So it can't.

It's just that Kevin Eastman's writing feels like its stuck in the 80's. I haven't read any of his non-TMNT books so I have no idea what his other franchises are like, but for TMNT it feels like he just writes random action sequences and characters quickly talking about everything going on and just strings a loose plot around it.

It may have worked back in the 80's but in the modern year of the 2010's+ it just feels disjointed. Even Bodycount back in 1996 is like this and that's from 20+ years ago. It doesn't really fly for modern standards unless you just want to see stuff blown up. Feels like one of those 80's action movies he was likely inspired by growing up.